Back in the early twentieth century, the room above George Adams’ butcher’s shop in the market town of Spalding, Lincolnshire, was used to produce the tasty hand-made pork pies that, over time, the company name has become synonymous with. Today, the shop is still in operation, the company is still a family owned business and they are still producing pork pies following the same traditional process, but the picture has changed a little.
George Adams & Sons now employs over 2000 people, has six modern manufacturing sites throughout Lincolnshire and fourteen van sales depots nationwide. The product range has expanded considerably, the pork pies are now award-winning and the company’s total annual turnover is now in excess of £140 million.
The UK food industry has also become highly competitive. But George Adams & Sons continues to be at the forefront by continuously investing in its factories and by setting and maintaining high standards of quality. All of this has contributed to the numerous accreditations awarded to George Adams & Sons from independent bodies.
It was this commitment to quality that led a division of George Adams & Sons, Adams Pork Products, to choose Redirack as their storage system provider. Following the extension of their chill-store in April this year, they contacted Redirack again to suggest the best solution to their needs.
Neils Donders, Production Manager at Adams Pork Products, takes up the story: "We have used Redirack throughout our warehouses and so approached them to advise us on an appropriate system when we extended our chill store."
The result is an innovative storage system that utilises a pallet live storage system to obtain the best possible storage density. Six runs of racking, up to 22m in length and 5m high, create five working aisles. The four central runs of rack contain the live storage bays which in the case of the two central runs can be loaded from either aisle.
The live storage system is loaded by reach trucks with pallets, each 1x1.2m in size and weighing 400kgs. On each pallet are trays of product which will be picked onto plastic dollies. In total the combination of dynamic and static storage within the system gives Adam's Pork Products around four hundred and fifty additional pallet positions.
Combining forklift trucks and people within the storage system meant that particular emphasis was given to the safety of the operators. Anti-collapse mesh screens were installed at the back of each live storage lane above the first level, and running to the top of the frame. This means that pallets and trays cannot be pushed out of the system, with a potentially harmful result.
The outcome is a truly unique system and the company was pleased with the health and safety benefits. Neils Donders commented: "The protection of the personnel from the fork lift trucks and the possibility of falling product re-assures us that the risk of injury is reduced."
Neils Donders continues: "We’ve been extremely pleased with the end result and were impressed with the way Redirack handled the whole project."
With such a high quality operation as this, it’s no wonder that George Adams & Sons were voted “Top Manufacture of the Year” by Meat and Poultry News.
